The beat goes on

Coffee is dripping - smell that aroma
The dog is begging to go out for his walk - listen to his panting and clicking nails on the tile
The house is quiet - except for the coffee gurgles and the dog
The north wind is blowing gently and it is 34 degrees
I have seven miles to run - nice and easy, may need gloves this morning
It's Friday - yippeee

TGIF and POETS (Thank God It's Friday & Piss On Everything Tomorrow is Saturday)

Welcome to my random thoughts

Until the next time
John Strain

Life isn't fair

"Life isn't fair" is the phrase we usually hurl at people who just had a setback. I for one know those words do little to soothe a so-called unfairness of life. The phrase is true though and people react differently to it.

All it really means is that things just happen. Sometimes we get what we don’t want; and other times what we want, we don’t get. OK, maybe those things happen more than sometimes. The point is there are things we cannot control.

Before we make our first choice as a living organism, a lot of things have been determined we have no say in. They are: place of birth, parents, race, class, and all of the physical, emotional, and intellectual characteristics. Some folks seem to have it all, but most of us have a mixed bag. There are people born rich who have low IQ's and personality problems and there are poor people with brilliant minds. A common theme in humanity is we all struggle with something.

In my work, I see people everyday who started with the deck stacked against them. I also see people who have pissed away a pretty good hand. Something I have learned is that you cannot predict a person's outcome. I am always asked questions like, "Do people recover from alcohol abuse?," "Does marriage counseling work?" and "Will I be able to get a job in this condition?" The answer is the same to all of the questions: "It depends."

When faced with a problem, challenge, or obstacle (choose your noun) we need to be resourceful, able to improvise, endure, be creative, and not quit until we've won. Many give up before they win. Giving up becomes a pattern and their life turns to crap. They utter the phrase, "Life is not fair" through clinched teeth. Their bitterness eventually isolates them, because who wants to hang around a chronic whiner?

Others achieve beyond what is expected. Look at the sidebar of this page and notice the one-legged runner. Running is not a requirement or even a normal thing for an amputee to do, but he wanted to run. His grit and determination not only enabled him to run, but to run next to the President.

Life is not fair. This phrase always causes gratitude to well inside me. I welcome the mundane and routine, because they are free from tragedy. I know tragedy and suffering will someday come, but if they are not here now, I will celebrate health and having enough.

When tragedy does come - and it will - I will endure it, learn from it, and do what I have to do to get through until its time is past. We all get our turn with suffering.

Today is the day to breathe the air and celebrate health, family, employment, provisions, relationships, and free time. Today is the day to extend a hand to those who are suffering if you can.

Life is not fair, but we have the power to take away a lot of its sting.

This concludes the sermon for today - I hope wherever you are and whatever you are doing, you are enjoying it.

Until the next time
John Strain

Look at my balls

by Bear

Yesterday morning when dad came back from his run, he had three new tennis balls. I was so excited I danced and clicked my toenails all over the kitchen floor.

I love tennis balls, but I lose them a lot. Sometimes, I carry one in my mouth when we go for a walk. Then somewhere along the way, I drop it. Dad checks me before we walk now, because he said he was getting tired of looking for balls all the time. A couple of them have been lost in our bushes too. Once dad threw one in the bushes and neither one of us could find it. I buried another one and I can't remember where it is.

Last Saturday we walked by the tennis courts and I found a ball by a tree the hurricane blew down. Dad says he is going to check that place out regularly so he doesn't have to buy any more balls. Then today, he found three of them. He said they were in a ditch and he had to fish them out of the water. I wish I had been there, I would have jumped in and got them myself.

I like having lots of balls, but I get confused. I keep dropping the one in my mouth when I see another one. I guess I always want the one I don't have, but when I get it, I want the next one. Dad says people are like that too.

OK, I guess I will go count my tennis balls again and make sure they are safe. I hope you have something in your life you like as much as I like tennis balls.

Until the next time
Bear

Read this

My mother is a very good writer. Do yourself a favor and read the Letter to the Editor she wrote a few years back describing her thoughts and feelings after her 50th high school reunion.

Until the next time
John Strain

Touching it with a ten-foot poll

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
- Bertrand Russell

What a wonderful invention; the opinion poll. It is so accurate and infallible leaders can look to them instead of their own mind. Before polls existed, leaders had to make decisions by considering various options and doing what they felt was best. It must have been hell making a decision not knowing if people would like it or not. Opinion polls are just the ticket for spineless, lazy, incompetent leaders.

The other morning I was listening to two political pundits arguing an issue. One of the men kept bringing up a poll. "57% of the people believe X, Y, and Z," he said. I say, "So what." If 57% of any group believes, for instance, that aliens populated the earth, it does not make it so. An opinion has limited uses.

Polls are used for all kinds of things today and I suspect a lot of them are not constructed very well. A poll needs to be reliable and valid. That is, it should test what it says it is testing and do it accurately. Even if a poll is constructed well, it only tells us what a group of people believes about an issue.

Polls are useful if you are test marketing a new ice cream or want to know if people like your new single. Where polls are not very useful is in cases where there is a "truth" or an answer. It would be ridiculous conducting a poll about the answer to 2+2. The answer is 4 no matter what people believe.

At one time, the majority of people believed the world was flat. The majority is often wrong, because many who make up the majority are just going along.

Alas, I guess we will just have to educate ourselves to find out the truth. We may even have to open our minds and (gasp) listen to opposing viewpoints. This intellectual honesty is no fun at all. It is much more fun to form an opinion and look at the world through it; than it is to form an opinion after careful consideration of the facts.

In the words of Dennis Miller, "That's just my opinion, I may be wrong."

Until the next time
John Strain